TVK’s Kota factory has created a storm from its first season itself. The show shows us about the student’s life set in the town named Kota. It mainly focused on the lives of young adults who are the aspirants to became ITT-ians. The show says that the fan based on the series is way beyond just only the engineering students. The director Raghav Subbu said in a conversation with indianexpress.com that although he created quite a tangible world in Kota Factor, he was never been a part of this engineering world in his formative years.
Raghav wanted everyone to show Kota in a different way which the people does not. He showed us a different side of the town. He said, “feel the depth of Kota, understand what the world is like.” But, at the same time, he wanted to remind people of certain ideas that they might have “forgotten along the way.” “This city is about determination, it is about being better than who you are and making it. Our goals might be different but our journeys, pretty much are the same,” he said. Besides this he also wanted to make the series an entertaining one, Raghav wanted to present Kota in a way that makes us “feel the drive behind being in a city like Kota.”
Every Year amny students move to the city to prepare themselves for the entrance exam that lead them to IIT and this may not lead every student to achieve that goal, some are severely affected by the immense pressure.The show is set in a young-adult world, yet the treatment of its characters is quite mature and delicate. Director Raghav Subbu calls this a “humanistic approach” in trying to tell the story of these teenagers. In his opinion, “It is very common and very easy to exploit a young adult, 16-18 space that we see on the internet or other channels. it’s very easy to go that way because that world is extremely effervescent. You expect teenagers to break bad.” Raghav shared that the creators at TVF wanted to create a world that is similar to the one they have experienced, that “feels like home.” “That feels Indian, not American at all, where you can go out for parties. It just does not resonate with an Indian audience and that’s precisely where we come from,” Raghav said.
The year 2020 has affected the world in different ways and in many aspires and the city Kota was also not spared by this. Like many other businesses and industries, the coaching industry of Kota suffered heavily. Students have left the town for a significant period of time due to this pandemic and this has resulted in severe losses for local businesses and has also affected the the preparation for the JEE exams. But Kota Factory has consciously made a choice to not address the pandemic and Raghav explained the reason for that. “We wanted it to be timeless,” he said.
Raghav shared that this is a “fictional show” so they had the liberty to create the world what they wanted to show and their aim was to create a show that is relevant “even sixty years later”. Adding the pandemic would have “close off certain narratives,” he said that “by putting in the pandemic, we thought that it would not resonate very well and it would not be a natural progression for the characters”.
While the first season has received a great positive reviews and feedback, so it is quite natural for everyone to expect that the second season may also follow the same line. While talking abou the upcoming season Raghav has said that they have already started writting the third season. He also conculed by saying that “We know how the story progresses. What happens to the characters, what is each character’s journey. Who makes it to IIT and who doesn’t”.
